Her face rose from the soil, and she sucked in breath, choking on dirt and leaves. She spat. The weight of the stake pushed down on her back. She wanted to cry for Neiva again, but dared not make a sound; the hunters would hear. Somewhere ahead, she heard trumpeting and thumping feet—mammoths running among the trees. Briefly she wondered if these were the same mammoths she had tried to hunt only days ago. Now she was the hunted.

I'm burned. I'm broken. I'm bruised. I'm bound to a wooden stake that crushes me and I cannot move. I will die here.

She gritted her teeth, gulping down the despair.

So I will die fighting.

With a growl, she pushed down her knees and tugged mightily at her bonds. The ropes dug into her again, but she found that her wrists slid a short distance up the stake.

Hope kindled inside her. She could not break her bonds, but with the stake lying flat above her, perhaps she could sling her wrists and legs above its top. She would still be tied but free of the stake; she would be able to crawl, maybe even hop, forward.

Wincing, she tugged again. Her wrists and ankles slid up the wood.

The thud of wings and cries of rocs sounded above. Hunters shouted; she could make out Zerra's voice among them. The stench of the flock wafted down into the forest, a foul miasma. Laira clenched her jaw, winced, and tugged with all her might. The rope kept tearing into her flesh, but she kept tugging, inch by inch, until with a gasp, her wrists reached the top of the stake. With one more tug, she was free from the wood. She wriggled her legs free too, fell into the mud, and crawled.

The stake lay behind, but ropes still bound her limbs. She couldn't even stand up. Dry leaves stuck to the mud covering her, filling her mouth, her eyes, her nostrils. Gasping for air, she wriggled into a patch of tall grass.

"Find her!" Zerra shouted somewhere above the canopy. "Rocs, pick up her scent!"

Again Laira heard the discordant sound—like air through pipes—as the rocs above sniffed for her.

They will smell me, she thought. They will find me like last time. They will take me back and torture me.

She had to mask her scent somehow. She had to move faster. She crawled over a fallen log, ignoring the agony of her wounds. When she thumped down into a patch of moss, she saw an abandoned mammoth foraging camp.

The trees were stripped bare of leaves here. Prints filled the mud, and shed mammoth fur covered brambles and boulders. The animals were gone, fled from the cries of rocs; she could see a path of trampled grass and saplings. A stench hit her nostrils, making her gag; a pile of mammoth dung steamed ahead, still fresh.

"Find her!" Zerra shouted above.